On a stretch of southwest Florida sand that has hosted holidaymakers since the 1940s, a familiar name has been reborn. Naples Beach Club, a Four Seasons Resort, opened last year on the site of the long-running Naples Beach Hotel & Golf Club, bringing fresh polish to Old Naples' beachfront without erasing its retro charm.
The design team leaned hard into local character. Architects at Hart Howerton took cues from the Old Naples cottages nearby — all breezy wood shutters and clapboard siding — while interiors firm Champalimaud Design, best known for hospitality heavyweights, layered in seashell door knockers, rattan accents and rooms washed in cream and periwinkle. The beloved Sunset Bar, where locals and snowbirds have drunk daiquiris in Adirondack chairs for generations, survives with a dose of contemporary glamour bolted on.
The resort has also raised Naples' dining profile, which had previously amounted to a shortlist of spots on Third Street South and Fifth Avenue South plus the recently renovated Ritz-Carlton next door. The Merchant Room, with its flamingo wallpaper and tropical-brasserie feel, serves a steakhouse-style menu under James Beard Award winner Gavin Kaysen. Seafood fans can head to HB's for shrimp cocktails and oyster platters served literally on the sand.
And then there's the water, which remains the real draw. Guests can borrow the resort's boat, docked with the Hamilton Harbor Yacht Club, to cruise past the mega-mansions of Port Royal and keep an eye out for dolphins. The Gulf Coast sunsets here perform year-round — Condé Nast Traveler recommends a spring visit, before the heat and summer rains set in.
For travellers, this matters because Naples has quietly become one of Florida's most refined beach towns, and the Four Seasons arrival gives it a serious luxury anchor with genuine history underneath. It suits couples after a soft-sand escape and families who want golf, boating and beach service in one place, with Old Naples' walkable dining streets a short hop away. If your Florida image stops at Miami, this Gulf-side scene — slower, sunnier, more genteel — is worth a look.
